


A heavy weight problem

by Hypatia_66



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Challenge Response, Electromagnetism, Episode Related, Episode: s02e14 The Yukon Affair, Gen, Magnets, Quantum Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 05:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16111466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypatia_66/pseuds/Hypatia_66
Summary: LJ Great Episode Challenge. The Yukon Affair. Prompt : explain the strange properties of Quadrillenium XIllya does his best, but really it's beyond even him. So, please suspend your disbelief.





	A heavy weight problem

The blue stone sat on the trolley, its gleaming red streaks catching the light. Its extraordinary properties were baffling. Illya had been researching it, but, as only someone with a grasp of a quantum physics could have understood it, neither of his colleagues was likely to – and Napoleon had doubts about even Illya’s grasp of the facts. Its specific gravity sounded a bit high – he must have misquoted that figure, surely. But slightly unsure of his ground, given Illya’s expertise, he didn’t question it.

“Which of its properties will most interest Thrush?” he said as both he and Waverly looked at Illya for enlightenment. “Surely its weight alone makes it awkward to handle – that’s why it missed me when this piece was dropped. They were too slow.”

Illya launched into a disquisition which Napoleon gloomily decided was going to take a grasp of the fundamentals of physics to follow.

“It has electromagnetic properties, so its power can be controlled. You can choose when to activate it – it’s different from a permanent magnet,” he said, trying to adjust his explanation to his audience, and added, “that’s the one you use to find small ferrous metal objects you have dropped.”

Mrs Waverly could have enlightened her husband as to its usefulness – she often dropped needles – but her husband and his senior agent could only do their best to look intelligent on the subject.

Illya pointed to the block on the trolley. “That piece weighs how much? An enormous amount for its size – but electrically charged, even a small piece of that metal could pick up thousands of times its own weight.”

He waited for gasps of astonishment, but received only slightly glazed indifference. He tried again. “It can disrupt compasses – which would be of considerable interest, of course.” He paused, observing with satisfaction that his audience looked appropriately concerned.

“You see, if you turned this material into an electromagnet – that’s a core tightly wrapped in a wire coil,” he added for the benefit of lesser brains, “it would create a strong magnetic field, a thousand times stronger than the coil alone…” He beamed at them, not recognising any further need to explain its significance. “And,” he ended triumphantly, looking at them for applause, “I believe that if it were also kept in cryogenic temperatures, it might even prove to be a superconductor.”

“What’s a superconductor?” Napoleon asked, deflating Illya’s misplaced air of confidence, and without expecting an answer he could understand.

“It’s a quantum mechanical phenomenon which means that at lowered temperatures, the material doesn’t lose its conductivity – like other conductors do. Maybe Thrush intended to keep it in the Arctic for that reason. Its uses would be limitless – it can be used to generate power. Using it, even space travel might become possible.”

“Thanks, that tells me all I ever wanted to know,” said Napoleon weakly.

“Well, you’d better go and find its source,” said Waverly, not tempted to comment and thereby reveal his own weak understanding of the physics.

<><><> 

Napoleon was further tested and irritated by his partner’s expertise in swimming in Arctic sea water and by his didactic explanation of how to use a clever device that combined both a miniature aqualung and a blowtorch. “Just don’t get it the wrong way round,” he had said.

“Do you take me for a fool?”

“Not at all, Napoleon. Just a bit careless sometimes.”

The problem wasn’t carelessness so much as bad luck, until they met the absurdly-named Inuit girl, Murphy. It didn’t occur to Napoleon that she must have a tribal name. Illya’s knowledge of Inuit languages was minimal – and Inuit name conventions were all but impossible for other races to understand – but he found her attractive and very much wanted to know what she was really called.

However, his understanding of the physics of Quadrillenium X – on which he had hitherto prided himself – took a serious knock when she showed him the pendant round her neck. By rights, she should have been bowed to the ground by its weight. It was still quite heavy for its size but only in the way a piece of marble or granite would be.

“You say _children_ carve this stone?” he said.

“Yes. The men use reindeer antler picks to mine it …”

“Reindeer antler? Like in the Stone Age?”

“Of course. Reindeer antler is very tough and easily obtained here. But, of course, this blue ore only becomes dense and extra hard when exposed to the air,” she said.

“But its weight – how is it lifted? Even a tiny piece would be too heavy for a child.”

“Oh, our men are very strong. But for carving it, we heat the smaller pieces that are still embedded in the stone core and as they cool, they become light and less dense, so they’re easy to carve.”

Illya swallowed hard. He didn’t know the physical explanation for that. It would be an interesting investigation when he returned to the Lab.

<><><> 

Carelessness – or maybe the effect of the cold – continued to mark their progress so Emory Partridge had no difficulty in catching and imprisoning them all. Escape from the cells that Illya and Murphy had been put in seemed impossible, even with the miniature blowtorch. Neither of them had anything to light it with and the hanging lamp was way out of reach. But when Murphy came close to the bars and bent to talk to him, her pendant swung forward and suddenly attached itself to them. Illya blinked in surprise and pulled it free again. “It’s a magnet – an ordinary, permanent magnet, now,” he said. “Smelting it like any other metal must remove other properties…”

“Oh, yes. It can be a bit annoying sometimes when you’re trying to throw a harpoon,” she said. “You mustn’t carry one of the carvings when you go out in a boat.”

“Murphy, you’re a treasure!” he said and kissed her, which served as an excuse to explain their proximity for the benefit of the guard who entered at that moment. The latter turned his back in disgust and settled to sleep at his desk.

The guard’s sleep, of the deep and sonorous kind, was sheer luck. Illya was able to use the magnetic pendant to bring the lamp near enough to light the blowtorch, which then performed its function admirably. After that, escape was simple.

<><><> 

Napoleon’s escape was also fairly simple but rather more dangerous – his own view was that Illya had gone mad, throwing a knife at him like that. Could have slipped, could have misjudged, could have brought about an untimely end to the career of a brilliant agent. Illya merely scoffed. “You’re free, aren’t you? What’s the problem?”

He then explained what he had discovered and what they would have to do when they found the store where the metal was being kept. “We’ll have to set fire to it – that will render it useless for any purpose they had for it.”

“First we have to find it,” Napoleon reminded him.

“Can’t be far.”

The next two or three hours were a little fraught but Napoleon’s normally constant companion, Lady Luck, who had been playing hard-to-get up to now, returned and they were able to escape to deal with the Quadrillenium X. And just in time. Thrush agents were due to arrive soon to collect the material. It wasn’t worth asking Illya how he had happened upon all those sticks of dynamite – he had his own brand of luck. Presumably they were used for mining and kept openly in the General Store with the skis, harpoons and guns. Napoleon attached them to one of the harpoons which he threw joyfully into the storeroom. It blew up most satisfactorily and caused considerable damage. However, while the huge explosion and fire de-natured the metal, it also nearly put an end to their own existence.

The men in Partridgeville, discovering that the two foreign agents had effectively freed them from slavery and domination by Emory Partridge, needed very little encouragement to join Murphy in her search for them. Picking their way through the ruins of the saloon, they found the two UNCLE agents lying on top of each other at the foot of the stage, half under a pile of rubble from a collapsed wall. Both had been knocked unconscious and were quite badly hurt. Illya had a deep cut over one eye and broken bones in his left arm and left leg. Napoleon’s left arm, too, looked in a bad way.

They performed what rudimentary medical aid was possible in the circumstances – enough to enable Napoleon to make contact with New York, at least – though not much could be done for his partner, who was far from well. Fortunately, there was no need for secrecy now – neither agent could in any case have got into a diving suit, let alone have dived down to a submarine. Mr Waverly arranged for the despatch of a helicopter to land other agents to finish the job of dealing with Thrush and it brought the wounded agents away, attended by the indomitable Murphy.

Napoleon was more awake than his partner and watched her ministering to Illya who was clearly in a good deal of pain and trying to hide it by shifting his position, and only making it worse.

“Relax, Illya,” she urged him. “It won’t be long now. Try to relax. You’ll hurt yourself if you move around like that.”

“Sorry,” he muttered.

She smiled at him and he gazed mistily up at her with his one good eye. “Tell me your real name, Murphy,” he said. “It must be something special.”

“No, I can’t do that,” she said gently. “Murphy is better for where we’re going.”

<><> 

Lying quiet in their hospital room, clean, tidied up, bones set, wounds stitched and bandaged, Napoleon was doing most of the talking. Illya was half asleep, enjoying some well-earned peace, and for the most part ignoring him. He woke up properly when Murphy came in – all ready for her return to college, wearing her smart suit and gloves, and with a bow in her shining hair, now free of its braids and bear grease. When she bent over Illya to rub noses and say goodbye, he whispered, “Yura, that’s your name, isn’t it?”

She smiled and rubbed noses again. “Aren’t you clever,” she said and turned to rub noses with Napoleon.

<><><><> 

**Author's Note:**

> This is science fiction. The physical attributes of Quadrillenium X that Illya cites and that are revealed later in the Yukon Affair are, of course, utter nonsense, ‘as any fule kno’(British in-joke). Nothing on Earth could support a material with a specific gravity of 484. The densest, heaviest material is Osmium, a metal with a specific gravity of 22.59, twice that of lead. 
> 
> The properties of Q X described above are also highly improbable… as any physicist knows. 
> 
> Yura is an Inuit name meaning ‘beautiful’.


End file.
